Windows 8 Desktop Icons in Tile View

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I appear to have some how placed my icons on my desktop in Tile View. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to restore the icons to their normal appearance. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Here is a printscreen of a portion of my desktop so you can see what I'm talking about:

enter image description here

Lyynk424

Posted 2014-02-09T23:43:01.627

Reputation: 3

Start regedit.exe and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop. What are the LogicalViewMode and Mode values set to? – and31415 – 2014-02-10T01:25:36.540

LogicalViewMode = 5 and Mode = 8. Both are Hexadecimal and REG_DWORD if that helps too. – Lyynk424 – 2014-02-10T01:31:59.020

@and31415 I managed to fix the problem with you pointing me to these 2 keys. Thank you very much for the guidance. – Lyynk424 – 2014-02-10T01:46:54.993

Answers

2

Solution

  1. Press Win+R, type regedit.exe, and click OK.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags\1\Desktop.
  3. Leave the registry editor windows open. Then, while pressing the Ctrl and Shift keys together, right-click the taskbar, and choose Exit Explorer from the context menu.
  4. Go back to the registry editor, and change the LogicalViewMode and Mode values to 3 and 1, respectively (i.e. the default values).
  5. Press Shift+Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Task Manager.
  6. Click on File > Run new task. Type explorer.exe, and press Enter.

Additional information

Here are the possible values:

LogicalViewMode | Value | Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Details         |   1   | Details view
Tiles           |   2   | Tiles view
Icons           |   3   | Icons view
List            |   4   | List view (Windows 7 and later)
Content         |   5   | Content view (Windows 7 and later)

­

Mode            | Value | Description
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Icon            |   1   | Medium-size icons
Small icon      |   2   | Small icons (seems unused)
List            |   3   | Object names are displayed in a list view
Details         |   4   | Object names and other selected information are shown
Thumbnail       |   5   | Thumbnail icons
Tiles           |   6   | Large icons
Thumbstrip      |   7   | Display icons in a filmstrip format (XP only)
Content         |   8   | Content mode (Windows 7 and later)

References

and31415

Posted 2014-02-09T23:43:01.627

Reputation: 13 382

I changed mine to list view and now I can't arrange my icons. They are lined up horizontally across both desktops. Ideas? – Devil's Advocate – 2016-04-18T15:43:57.143

@and31415, this has been one of the most awesome docs that I have pointed people to forever; however, as of Windows 10 (1703) this trick no longer works, is there any update to it that will make it continue working? I would personally appreciate it, and I am sure there are many others that would as well. I had this working just fine on Windows 10 for all builds until 1703 (aka Creator Update). Thank you in advance. – GµårÐïåñ – 2017-05-07T00:05:12.047

@Lyynk424 I've added some info about the different values. For example, the desktop has LogicalViewMode and Mode values set to 3 and 1, which means it's displayed in icons view and using medium-size icons. – and31415 – 2014-02-14T10:34:28.867

0

Simple. On the desktop, Hold Ctrl > Roll Mousewheel Up/ Down to Increase/Decrease Icon size ;)

pulsarjune

Posted 2014-02-09T23:43:01.627

Reputation: 1 242

Using the mouse wheel on the desktop you can only adjust the icon size, but the display mode won't change. – and31415 – 2014-02-14T10:40:08.263

Asked: 2014-02-09T23:43:01.627

Viewed: 3 124 times

Active: 2014-02-14T10:31:22.623